


Old Stars

by SincerelyYourNightmare



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek - Various Authors, Star Trek: The Next Generation (Movies), The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, Banter, Blood and Gore, Character Death, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Depression, Eugenics Wars (Star Trek), F/F, F/M, First Contact, Grief/Mourning, Inappropriate Humor, Just imagine first contact with these Old Guys, M/M, Nile has a training montage now, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Smoking, Some graphic descriptions of drowning, Suicide, Swearing, Team Feels, That MCD is permanent death not just pseudo-death I'm sorry, Too World-Weary For Labels, World War III, Worldbuilding, dark humour, lots of heavy stuff, now with more angst, wow this looks grim it's actually not always that grim? i hope
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:54:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 10,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25462765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SincerelyYourNightmare/pseuds/SincerelyYourNightmare
Summary: The fallout of multiple Augment Empires jockeying for supremacy was always going to have the worst impact on the average joes, so those were the ones the gang vowed to help.For all that they were different now, they were still a team.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 57
Kudos: 68





	1. The Hoax

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [l'albatros](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25530934) by [TheGoodDoctor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGoodDoctor/pseuds/TheGoodDoctor). 



> Just a warning: there's gonna be Gore and Heart-Ripping Feelings and lots of stuff about war and trauma. I mean, look at the fandoms, it's basically a double helping of everything. Be safe, don't trigger yourselves. But I hope this is a good read all the same. 
> 
> Also, just another warning, this is going to be a mash of the graphic novel and the film(s). Fanon is my style; I have some headcanons at the ready and you can't take them from me. Some basic knowledge of Star Trek history and of the Old Guard film and graphic novel is assumed.
> 
> [Here](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Eugenics_Wars) is the link to the Eugenics Wars Memory Alpha page, but there will be spoilers and there will be shifting of dates and basically, I'll completely ruin everything but the utter basics on there. When I merge fandoms, I salt the earth behind me. 
> 
> Enjoy.

When the news spread that aliens had landed in Montana, it took Nile three seconds to contemplate this, weigh the possibilities and announce it a hoax, imploring them to focus on raiding a depot that some local thugs had fortified. Booker switched off the radio so they could strategize without disruptions, holed up in their cobbled-together little base, and that was that. No one had time to think about such frivolous things as aliens when they were fighting for the literal survival of the human species. 

To people that thought about the future in terms of centuries and millennia, World War Three (known in the aftermath as the ‘inevitable consequence’ of the Eugenics Wars) had been a certainty (meaning Nile was hopeful and the others were dismissively apprehensive). Joe had called it, on the evening that Khan Noonien Singh had declared himself Prince of the Asiatic Dominion via radio, news station and social media. None of them had taken _that_ sucker’s bet. Big pharma, to absolutely no one’s surprise, had been neck deep in it from conception. 

‘Merrick’ was the thought hanging obvious and heavy in their silence on the subject. Despite having their CEO dethroned rather violently, the company had stayed a respected name in the business. They’d even martyred the eponymous Merrick: blamed it on terrorists, competitors, treachery from inside, anything but the truth. 

The fallout of multiple Augment Empires jockeying for supremacy was always going to have the worst impact on the average joes, so those were the ones the gang vowed to help. They pulled people from debris before reporting their retrieval work to local leaders. Gathered expeditions into barraged towns to salvage whatever and whoever they found. They were never leaders themselves: too easy to get noticed. 

Of course, they were noticed anyway but people were still scraping together basic communication that wouldn’t give away their position to any hostile factions, so no one could fact-check a single thing about them. No identity was not only _not_ unusual, it was the _usual_. Still, people remembered the leaders, so leaders couldn't stay without identity for long.

They didn’t need identities to become rescuers. Relief workers, saboteurs, infiltrators, the heavy hammer ‘big boom’ distraction. People recognised them simply by their number; if four, and only four soldiers converged on a position, it was probably the Four Ghosts. 

Yeah. They got a title. A Capital-Letter-Title. It was mostly a reputation covering the old New World, though, because long-distance travel when there’s a war on was, er, _not advisable_. 

People whispered it to sooth their children’s worry, people shouted it after them from their field hospital beds, thanking them and crying at their impossible luck. People also muttered it at dusk, their bitter tone infecting those close by. 

_They must have an agenda. Maybe they’re Augments. Why are they doing this? Maybe they’re_ Augments. _Where did they come from? So_ what _if they’re Augments?_

But mostly they were praised and raised to mythical status. Living legends, like Andromache was, once. They don’t talk about it much. 

One such person, who shouted after them in thanks - alerting the entire camp to the presence of heroes in their midst - was a refugee from Montana. He yelled at them that there was some shit going on there, some real shit, no one knew what to believe. Supposedly, there were aliens. And though no one knew for sure if that was true, no one could refute that there was a weird-ass spaceship in a Montana town, either.

In a rare moment of perfect nonverbal understanding, the Four turned back to talk to the man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I watched The Old Guard the second it came out on Netflix (literally the second, I might be the first one to watch it) because I was bored and Charlize Theron, duh, that's successful marketing right there.
> 
> I realised after I watched it that it seemed kinda like a Marvel film and I was ruminating on this while reading the wikipedia page and then BOOM, it's 'based on a comic book'. Well, I'd call it a graphic novel, but that's semantics. Explains some things. Anyway, I read it and was then blown away by the Art and the Aesthetic and the Feels and the Inappropriate Humour and then I was like 'shit, here we go again'.
> 
> It's gonna have arcs, but with events in a bit of a random order. I hope it'll make sense when you see it.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, there's more coming. My brain won't shut up about this.


	2. Skills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Booker is perpetually Done With This Shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So you gotta imagine this chapter like it's got art and speech bubbles and is organised in panels.

Having indefinite time (not forever, never forever) allowed for some eclectic hobbies. Nile learnt to play the bassoon just because, Nicky and Joe were very briefly part of an opera troupe during a comeback-era in the 2030s, and Booker used spite towards his own coping mechanism to become a truly amazing drink-mixer. There were many more, of course. 

Nevertheless, space travel physics and space-worthy engineering was beyond all of them. They were all very clearly (maybe even inescapably) warriors, no matter anything else they picked up along the way. 

When they arrived in said town in Montana, the people at the gates were suspicious. Not particularly strange. They asked for skills, why the community should take the team on. 

When they introduced themselves as mercenaries looking for a semi-permanent base, people were even more suspicious. Nicky was great at the gentle tone and open expressions, but his word choice left something to be desired. Many of the locals were surreptitiously fingering their weapons in preparation for a fight against a takeover. Joe loosely crossed his arms and prepared to lunge. 

Nile tried to smooth it over, tried to make it sound like a fair trade. Board and food for protection while they were in the area. People were more settled if it didn’t look like altruism; if both parties got something tangible out of it, it was less likely to be reneged. That put some hackles back down. They thought they had gotten the measure of the mercenary group. There was a contemplative silence that dragged on and on and on...

...Booker shifted on his feet. Booker sighed. Booker tilted his head to the heavens for guidance and only got rained on. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. We’re the Four Ghosts!” Booker rasped. He glared tiredly at their surprise and hesitant shuffling. “ _Yeah_. You’d be _fucking_ stupid to turn us away. Are you fucking stupid?” 

They met Cochrane an hour later.


	3. Count Them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bring on the angst.  
> Graphic descriptions ahead.

They used to be Six. 

Well, no, not Six.

They were Five-and-One, then somehow Four-and-Two and Five-and-One simultaneously. 

Andy wanted to be with both of her families, but when both loathe the other for unnegotiable (and _stubborn_ ) reasons, it’s a bit of a lost cause. Even time only heals if you let it. Andromache the Scythian was never meant to be a peacekeeper. They tried not to involve her in their disagreements – the only instance of mutual accord. 

They had forty years together. Early on in her hospital-stay, Andy had said ‘I’ll never really leave you’ as an attempt at consolation. As her condition worsened over months, Quynh used it as a mantra. _I won't leave you_. Andy wanted her to leave, to go on missions, to make up with the team. To _bathe_. But Quynh never left her, other than to piss and to scrub herself down in the adjoining bathroom. 

Quynh even died of thirst a few times while at her vigil, until the team realised that they would have to keep a watch on the other immortal. They kept her alive with tap water and fruit. Nicky only tried to get her to diversify once, with chips. When the next person on shift (Booker) arrived, Nicky was dead on the hospital floor on top of the squashed chip bag and Quynh said ‘No salt’. She didn’t move her gaze from a sleeping Andy. 

They were Four-and-One for only the briefest of moments. Quynh was sitting at her side when Andy rasped her last breath out of damaged lungs. When the inhale failed to come, Quynh roused from her trance with a blink and gave a death-wail that woke someone from a coma two floors up. 

Nile dropped her cup of shitty hospital coffee and sprinted to the room. 

First, she saw Andy. The machines were shrieking in concern and Nile choked on a sob. 

By this time, Nile had become somewhat numb to gore. What made her crack wasn’t the dagger in Quynh’s fist, holding it in place in her own chest. It wasn’t the tears that had stopped streaming down Quynh’s face but were still visible. 

It was the hand holding Andy’s in a gentle, coaxing manner.

There was blood dripping onto the floor and Nile’s automatic response was to slam and lock the door behind her without looking. Nurses started banging on it shortly after. Nile ignored them and kept staring at the upsetting tableau.

Secondly, she called Booker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And Booker was all 'why call _me_ ' and then 'fuck, who else'.


	4. The Clearing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: more heartbreak ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my last pre-written chapter. Give me a week, my plotbunnies will have shoved me further down the rabbit hole by then.

Somehow, Booker and Nile managed to heave Quynh out of the ground floor window without dislodging the dagger. It was Nicky who had noted quietly that they would never get her out of the room if she revived to look at Andy’s stiff body. He and Joe accepted their definitely-not-team member, which left the other two to wrap Andy in her sheet and manoeuvre her outside. 

Thankfully, even a private hospital in rural North America didn’t pay their staff enough for them to bother the team. After the nurses got handed a wad of cash each, Andy’s records vanished from the system. The only condition was for them to avoid any cameras. 

They could do that. 

All of them drove to the clearing on the highest hill in the area. None of them wanted to bury Andy if there was some other way she wanted to go out. Cremation, or whatever. The only one who would feasibly know was Quynh. Andy had never spoken of her own post-death wishes while she was with them. 

They lay side by side on that hill and Nile yanked out the dagger.

They waited for the wound to heal. Seconds passed. Hours. 

Nothing. Joe commented hesitantly that Quynh’s ordeal under the waves might have made her healing slow, like it always was in the beginning. 

Still it didn’t heal.

* * *

Two days later, decomposition had made both bodies stink. Realisation sank in and they couldn’t languish in denial any longer. 

Nicky refused to leave the Jeep no matter what cajoling Joe did until both were in the hole. He then grabbed the shovel with white knuckles and his piercing look dared them to argue that he was to be the one to cover them from the sky forever. 

Booker commissioned a memorial stone. No names.

‘As promised  
They did not leave  
Each other’

It was poignant. And more than mildly bitter. 

Andy and Quynh were buried side-by-side, holding hands. Nile deliberated over giving them artifacts to send them off. At least the axe, with Andy. 

The other three vehemently denied the need and stopped her. Things were meant to be used until they broke. That axe was a functional replica of an antique. And although all of them knew not to say it, Nile had been personally trained in its use. Andy had chosen her apprentice. 

Joe did put in a silver bell in each of their empty hands. He shrugged when they gave him a look. After the trauma that everyone had endured - especially Booker and hospitals, Jesus H Christ - and Nile could only mostly guess at, yeah, that was fair. It was more for _them_ than for the two in the grave. 

Nicky wielded the shovel.

For a long moment, everyone simply stood in front of the stone, breathing in the scent of freshly turned earth and hearing the birds chirp incongruously. Everyone was desperately struggling not to get pulled into memories. 

Suddenly, the wind dropped, and the birds seemed to get muted simultaneously. It was as if this little piece of Earth was holding its breath. Paying homage. Waiting for something, maybe. A single songbird began its trills again and the spell broke. 

Nile laughed wetly and slightly hysterically. There wasn’t a dry eye in the entire clearing. They vowed to come visit whenever they crossed this way again. 

And then there were Four.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is your heart pleasantly shredded yet? I thought so. 
> 
> Hauling a body through a window as a team-building exercise.  
> I'm sorry, that's so morbid...
> 
> If you're wondering why the hell Andy is just laying around a hospital bed, wait for it. I won't spoil your anticipation of more angst.


	5. Nile's Training Montage - Part 1 - Too Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A slight reduction in angst, because we deserve it.
> 
> If you're binging this, take a breather. I know the last chapter was like a pile of shit news dropped on your head. Yeah, they _are_ both dead. Life goes on. That's, like, a _theme_ or something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went back to edit some previous chapters in small ways. I can't help it, I'm a serial editor. :P Oh, and I changed some chapter names.

_Kick. Punch. Kick, kick. Punch, punch. Spinning kick. Punch, punch._

Nile was beating the shit out of her punching bag. It was not making her feel better, but it was getting the aggression out, so that was something. She didn’t want to be aggressive when she addressed her jealousy; that was never the greatest of combinations.

So what if the team was working out in the back, their makeshift assault course getting just as beat up as Nile’s punching bag? Of course, they needed some team time, some more training to integrate the new vulnerability Andy injected into the machine. It wasn’t as if she was _just as perfectly capable_ of watching their backs. 

Yeah. Nile went back to violently assaulting leather so she wouldn’t have to hear her own snide resentment. 

It was difficult to get that single-minded intensity going, though, because she could hear the practice rounds and the yelling of formations from the open door. She thought about closing it, but it was damn hot, and the light breeze was the only thing keeping her from getting _really_ catty. This summer could just end, already; Nile was so done with the constant heat. For all that Afghanistan prepared her for it, she never got used to it, either. 

The breeze got cut off when the team came stumbling in, Nicky dragging his leg and Andy with a split lip. Nile raised an eyebrow, but Andy just grinned and shook her head. She looked good, energised. As they filed into the kitchen to dump all their gear on the same table that they ate at, _again_ , Nile felt a little twinge of shame for grudging their team lead a nice day of training. Nile was still the newbie; it was to be expected that she couldn’t take part in some things. 

Some things just took time.

“Alright, camper, it’s your turn!” 

Andy was standing at her side before Nile had even registered the movement. Her voice was chipper and wow, Nile had never heard her sound so enthusiastic. It boded ill of her future. Usually that tone was coming from her mom when there was an hour-long lecture on how to darn socks in the works. 

Nile’s hesitation must have been on her face, because the other two jokers were unsuccessfully holding in their snorts. 

“Er, my turn for _what_?” she queried.

“Training, of course! Don’t you want to learn how to be badass with a weapon that actually needs your upper body strength?” 

Yes! Er, wait a sec…

“Um, you mean like a _sword_? Hell _yeah_!”

Andy rolled her eyes even as she walked backwards out of the door. 

“Yes, idiot, like a sword. And… other things.”

Thus began Nile’s tutorage in ancient weaponry. It started with the basics – short swords, quarterstaff – and graduated to longswords and axes when Nile either showed promise or a lack of any talent whatsoever. Andy’s expression never wavered from firm concentration, so Nile had to guess how she was doing. She felt a bit stupid, trying out these weapons she didn’t have the first clue how to utilise in their intended way, but that feeling diminished with every new-old handle she grasped. By the time her arms were screaming at her, she was having unrestrained fun. 

“Okay, okay, stop, this is painful,” Andy finally ordered shortly before dusk. The day had been gruelling and even in the evening it was like the earth had decided it wasn’t done yet with the day and decided to cling to the heat possessively. Nile gratefully lowered the double-headed axe she had been hefting at invisible enemies; as much as it smarted, she did _not_ have the workout routine to swing one of those around at the drop of a hat. 

Andy lit what had to be her thirtieth cigarette of the day and took a languorous puff. 

“Okay,” she said gruffly and stared Nile straight in the face. Her eyes were… they were carrying too many feelings at once. Nile didn’t have a clue what to expect. “So, you’re just too good, is what I’m seeing.”

“I’m… too good?”

“Yeah, that’s what I _said_ , idiot. You pick one up, you give it a few swings and then _bam_ , you adjust your drills to compensate. It’s infuriating; Booker would -”

Nile focussed on not preening, and Andy didn’t elaborate on what Booker would do. 

“...What’s wrong with being too good?” Nile asked, instead of poking that oozing wound. 

Andy sighed and scratched her face with the hand holding her cigarette. 

“Goddammit. Nothing’s wrong. It just means that I have no idea where to fucking start! If you showed some talent for one thing, I could base my teaching off of that. It’s important to know how you learn, so you don’t form bad habits. I mean, it’s not like you’ll have permanent repercussions of the physical sort, but like we discovered from that primped-up murder-toad, making a misstep in the field can have a different sort of consequence.”

Yeah, Merrick really fucked up their little group of fighters, Nile could tell. No one had left their safehouse for a month and if someone was alone outside too long, there were surreptitious glances out the window and a lot of perimeter checking. Hell of a way to get introduced to immortality. 

With how twitchy everyone was, Nile was a bit surprised they had let Booker go. True, she knew there had to be penalties to betrayal. However, Booker was so obviously in pain. It felt wrong to simply let him wander the world alone when he really, really wasn’t. For a two-hundred-year-old, another hundred on top of that had to be excruciating. Time was always stretched into eternity in the early years. 

Fuck. Still a trip to think of two hundred as the _early years_. 

“So, anywhale. You got a preference?” Andy cut into her boggling thoughts. “’Cause otherwise I’ll just spring something different on you every time we spar.” 

“Er, right,” Nile rallied. “I wanna learn dual daggers. Those look badass.”

Andy raised an eyebrow but walked over to the knives all laid out in a row on some material. She made to throw a pair, but when Nile flinched and raised her hands automatically, she just grinned mischievously around the death-stick and handed them over, handle first. 

“Alright, it’s not the usual start, but you’ve already got some experience with your Ka-Bar, right?” Her tone of voice stated clearly that she hadn't forgotten Nile's reaction to getting shot on the way to the airfield.

Nile just nodded and twisted the short blades this way and that. She thought they should gleam menacingly, but they were oddly matt in appearance. Despite the disparity, they felt good in her palms. She really missed her Ka-Bar; too bad it was languishing under an Afghan shrub somewhere after Andy had flung it away. 

Her brain retroactively went through the conversation and her breath stuttered when something registered. 

“Hold up, did you say _‘anywhale’_. Is all your slang so ridiculously outdated, old-timer?”

“Shut up, greenie, and I’ll show you how to dance with those. We’ll get around to the axes eventually,” Andy growled. The last bit was in an undertone that obviously wasn’t supposed to be comprehensible to Nile. 

Nile’s heartbeat started getting a bit irregular. Andy… wanted to teach her the axe? 

Oh.

Her thoughts scattered into the cool breeze of the evening as they went through stabs and slashes and forms, again and again. They had some time. Not forever, as Andy’s bloodied lip informed her every time she cared to look, but enough time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, horrifying thought - this isn't even half of what I planned to write in this chapter. It's a good thing I love Nile so much. 
> 
> Next week it's back to the regularly scheduled angst, even if it's with a continued lighter flavour than usual. If I even manage to get around to the angst, omg. ^.^
> 
> I'm also trying to create something of a buffer, but we'll see how that goes. I'm still embroiled in RL stuff.


	6. Nile's Training Montage - Part 2 - Breath Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nile reaches out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An early update. This one wrote itself.  
> You're welcome to comment on how I did with the direct speech. That's always been a weak point for me, so constructive feedback would be appreciated.

On the forty-seventh day A.M. (After Merrick), Nile typed a code into her computer and found Booker's tracker. He was apparently staying in Amsterdam for reasons not outwardly clear. Maybe it was the cheese. 

She called him. It didn't connect and went to voicemail that Booker didn’t have set up. Nile did some breath control exercises and tried again. On the sixth ring, there was an audible connection noise, but no one spoke. 

“Hello? Booker, is it you?” Nile hesitantly inquired. “It’d be pretty awkward if I started ranting and it’s not Booker, so if you could give some kind of affirmative, that’d be great, thanks.” 

Silence. Glass scraping against metal. Then, swigging noises. Fortunately (or unfortunately), she knew the sound of a bottle being opened. 

It was Booker. Probably. 

“Right. Well, this is your monthly call. How you doin'?” 

Silence. She knew right then it was gonna be one of _those_ phone calls. She’d had a few of them to her mom after she ran off to enlist. Never with Manny, though – he got it. He would never do something like enlist either, but that was more because he was ambivalent about the armed forces. Her little brother had aspired to be an obnoxious intellectual since he could understand the exhibit signs in the history museums. When he switched his interest to journalism, that barely made any waves in their household. It was always her with the awkward conversations about her career. 

She was somewhat experienced in awkward conversations.

“Yeah, I get you. I’m here getting stomped on by Andy and liking it, by the way. Is Joe always so ruthless in his sword training, or is it me? And Nicky, wow. He offered to show me how to snipe, you know. Like, with those really cool rifles, too. I didn’t take them to be aficionados, dude; it somehow didn’t fit with my mental image. Nicky showed me his 'collection'. I was trying to slide outta there all politely, but he just went for it with those wide, soulful eyes, Booker, and I couldn’t say no, you know?” 

Silence. More glugging noises. Nile was careful not to say anything guilt-inducing. She knew from personal experience that rather than hope, guilt would be the emotion left behind after all the others burnt themselves out in a twisted version of Pandora's box. Depression was no joke. 

“Booker. I want you to know that you are missed. I want you to know that I look forward to meeting you again, like for real. I barely know you, but I know we’re gonna be besties. None of these jokers get my memes, it’s awful.” Nile took a shaking breath. “I want to know how you’re doing, even if it’s shit. _Especially_ if it’s shit.”

Goddammit, Nile had told herself she wasn’t going to cry. This wasn’t about her. She swallowed the stone in her windpipe. 

“I want you to know that you’re not alone. Alright? You’re not alone.” 

Silence. Nile was getting annoyed with silence. Her anger was getting pretty intense too, but she swallowed it down with her tears. Booker wasn’t in any frame of mind to respond to the usual social scripts. 

“Anyway. This was your monthly check-in. Be ready next time to answer the first call, or I’ll panic and go chasing after your tracker, alright? Alright. See you, Booker.”

_Beep_. 

“Fuck.”

* * *

“…So I wasn’t sure what she meant, 'cause who even remembers thirty formations by their _number_ , for fuck’s sake.” 

Nile ran a hand down her face and fiddled with a braid. Jesus, it was getting way too fragile from her constant sweat-soaked state and subsequent showers. They ran out of conditioner a week ago. Apparently, it didn’t count as ‘essential’. It was pretty _goddamn_ essential for her hair’s well-being, okay? It’s not like Nile was going take fewer showers in this weather. No way was she gonna leave her sweat to itch on her scalp; she was not good with that. 

“Like, I was hacking away at our creepy practice-doll-thing that Joe drew a face on – did I tell you he made it smile like the Joker? So creepy – and then she was all: ‘Three! Five! Twenty-four!’. The others dived and rolled, and I was there all ‘er, what the fuck’ when Andy shot me in the stomach. With a full cartridge. _Damn_ , that hurt.”

It still twinged, a whole hour later. Nile was pretty sure it was just in her head, but then all pain was in the mind, so what did that really mean, anyway. She’d start worrying if it was still there tomorrow morning. 

“So, yeah, that was my day. I’m just chilling. Or trying to. It’s kinda hard to chill when it’s so frickin’ hot I could fry an egg on the patio. The sun went down, Booker! I shouldn’t still be able to nuke leftovers just by putting them down on the ground!” 

Yeah. Global warming was really fucking the world up. Those people still living in denial – Nile felt sorry for them. And a little mad at them, too. Seeing as she would be living with any and all consequences for an indeterminate time, why shouldn’t Nile be invested in that? Maybe she should join an activist group online or something. A change of pace, to fight something metaphorically rather than literally. 

It was Nile’s third month of checking up on Booker. By now, she had gotten used to the long silences their conversations evoked, on both sides. It was sorta like keeping a verbal diary, except she hoped her diary would talk back someday. 

There were fewer gulping sounds over the line this time. In fact, Nile had started the call shortly after her shower, which was a three-quarter hour ago, and now that she was thinking about it, there hadn’t been a single peep from the other side. 

She held her breath and focussed on the connection. It was surprisingly clear and when Nile stretched her ears, she could just about hear some deep, even breaths on the other end. Asleep. 

She hung up without further talk; it just took some time to get her own breathing under control to do it. Sobbing soundlessly was actually rather difficult.

* * *

The fourth call was at the tail end of a better training day. Nile hadn’t even died more than five times. High bar, but she’d made it. 

“…And that’s why I’m called Nile. My mom wanted a name for either a boy or girl. Yeah, not very glamorous. At least having a unisex name is getting more popular.”

As much as she loved and respected the woman who raised her, Nile had also always been a bit irked by that. Her mom had probably just landed a finger on a nice unisex name in a baby book and with her dad away on tour it had been difficult for him to argue against it. Not that it wasn’t nice, but it also literally meant ‘river’. _And_ it was impossible to shorten into a nickname without making it weird. 

Unlike ‘Manfred’. Maybe their parents were just not great at naming their kids. Nile felt marginally better about it – misery loved company, after all. 

“Booker, Book-er, Booker. You know, now that I think about it, do you even like your nickname? Is it an inside joke? Maybe you wanna be called–.”

“Sebastien.” 

Holy shit. It was barely a croak, but it was definitely Booker. Okay, Nile. Be cool. 

“Sebastian? Sebby?” 

There was coughing on the other side that didn’t sound very healthy. Nile needed to ask the others if immortals could still get ill. It wouldn’t make sense if they could, but y’know, _immortality_. It’s not like there was a manual. 

“ _Non_. See, this is why I don’t tell non-French people my name. It’s Sebas _tien_.”

Fuck. Nile couldn’t hear a difference. What to do?

“Okay, Sehbah-stiiohn. I’m trying, dude, but obviously you’re never gonna be happy with it. I don’t blame you; my pronunciation is so shit even I can tell.”

There was more coughing. Okay, distract, distract.

“Don’t worry, I can own up to it; I blame my education. We never had to do any proper language study and my shitty German ain’t gonna cut it.”

“… _Non_ , it is _not_ cutting it, Nile! What the fuck, German is nothing like French.” He sounded affronted. 

“Alright, alright!” Nile was grinning despite herself. Man, she really had missed his grumpy rumble. “So, not… _that_ , but what about shorter ones? Seb? Sebby? Basty? Baz?”

There was a suspicious lack of coughing on the other end of the line. 

“Yeah? You like one of them? Which one was it?”

Silence. Shit, Nile really didn’t want to go back to silence. She waited Booker out with hope pressing achingly at her ribs from the inside. 

“…Baz. Is acceptable. I guess.” 

She didn't know him that well but in her mind's eye he was grimacing and running a hand through his hair in embarrassment. Her arms itched with the need to hug him. Aw, he let her name him! Seriously though: _Baz_? Well, to each their own. It wasn't the worst Nile had ever heard. 

“Awesome,” Nile said. There was no way Booker – Baz – didn’t hear the grin in her voice. “You want me to tell the others?” 

“No!” came the swift answer. He didn’t sound like he was gargling pebbles anymore, but he didn’t sound one hundred percent yet, either. “Just you. I got used to ‘Booker’, it’s what I … respond to, how I think of myself, you know? _Mais_ … I think-.”

He cut himself off and Nile gave him a few seconds to finish his thought. After a moment, she cleared her throat delicately. 

“Thank you, Baz,” she said gently. It felt amazing to talk with him again, rather than _at_ him. She smiled brightly at the canopy of the tree she was standing under.

“You’re welcome,” Booker replied, confused and strangled. It came out more like a question. He cleared his own throat. “So, I feel I should tell you that Nicky is messing with you; he isn’t actually that obsessed with rifles.” 

The smile dropped. 

“ _What_? That little _weasel_ -.”

“You can tell him to fuck off next time he tries that,” Booker offered. “I have many things that would make him stop. Do ... do you want some blackmail?” 

Nile made a sound like a pissed off hyena and had to deliberately unclench the fist around her protesting phone case. Her other hand was free to make clawing and pointing motions at the air in front of her.

“No! I’m gonna pay him back with _interest_. I don’t need no blackmail, I’m just gonna troll him back _so hard_ -.”

Booker coughed. Once. This time, Nile had no trouble discerning that it was trying to be a laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor bebe Nile is trying so hard with her amateur psychology. I projected that just a tad, I think. Also, for the curious, [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd8cnaS6fcU&t=28s) is what a hyena sounds like. The sound I refer to is the second one of the video. 
> 
> So, by now I've sort of figured out where I'm going with this story. Hooray! That never happens! But this also lets me know that this story is going to be so character-driven it's unbelievable. No epic last stands or amazing action sequences here, I'm sorry. If you want those, go watch the film. I'm here for that sweet sweet pain and major worldbuilding.
> 
> This chapter was greatly inspired by [l'albatros by TheGoodDoctor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25530934). Go read, it's absolutely amazing what they did with Booker. I aspire to write that well. 
> 
> I also have no military or weapons experience whatsoever, it's all what I learned off films, documentaries and Wikipedia. 


	7. Nile's Training Montage - A Day Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruminations in a hammock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This time from Nicky's POV.  
> I've had this one planned out since conception, so I'm pumped it's going up!  
> Good news! I have a buffer! It's tiny, but it's there.  
> This is also the second chapter this week, because I won't post one next week at all. RL is coming to a head. I will resume posting, hopefully, two weeks after that.  
> Enjoy some lazing around in the sun!

**Nicky**

Dozing in the sun was a luxury Nile was never taking for granted again, apparently. She had been groaning and whining for a while now that she needed a ‘me day’ where she did something other than create sweat. They had agreed to give her a free day once every two weeks. Andy wasn’t heartless, just good at pretending as such when really, she was afraid.

Nile was resting in her customary hammock next to Nicky’s own canvas hammock and he could hear her periodically take a sip of her mocktail. The edges of the material provided a modicum of shade when the sun filtering through the leaves got too much. It had been quiet between them for some time now, so he knew Nile was building towards a new chat. 

“You know, I’ve recently realised that I’m never going to like guns,” was her opening salvo this time.

She had been trying to provoke him with the most risqué and blunt statements they had ever had in their interactions so far. He wasn’t sure where it was coming from. Either she wanted to see if he could get flustered, or she was relishing the chance to have open conversation about the most random and taboo of subjects. It could also be payback for messing with her about his rifles, but he wasn’t yet certain that she had caught on. If Joe had spoiled his fun by telling her, there would be Consequences.

They had already discussed what the most unpleasant places are for sand to get into, if Joe had ever proposed, if Nicky had ever proposed, if the middle ages really were as horrifically unsanitary as history described it, and whether or not Nicky and Joe had ever had public sex, to name a few. The topics had varied so greatly, Nicky was forced to consider that the mocktail was more cocktail than he had thought. 

Now it was guns. 

“Oh?” he enquired non-committedly. A useful result to being unable to see each other was that there was no pressure to react in a certain way. No visual cues. As a very vision-oriented person, it was an interesting challenge for Nicky. 

“Yeah. When I first picked up a gun at the range in Chicago, I knew I didn’t like it. But I thought I had time, before and in boot camp, to learn how to like them. I’m good enough to be a sharpshooter with an M16, sure. But no. It never happened.”

There was a tone of vague sadness that shone through Nile’s confession. 

“I don’t _hate_ them, though,” she continued. There was slurping interspersed between her sentences. “I don’t like them, but I don’t hate them. Is that weird?”

“No,” he assured her quickly. It was to be about philosophy, then. “To hate something is a different state to not liking it. It’s active, not an absence.”

He debated continuing into an anecdote and decided it was warranted. These rest days were just as much about assimilating Nile into the team as the drills and exercises. 

“When Yusuf and I fought each other in the beginning, it was about hate and misunderstanding. We were told there was a scourge to the east that would descend on all civilisation back home. That we needed to rescue the holy places from them. It inspired fear. I went to war because I hated the thought of people losing their homes, their lives to such savages. I didn’t hate the people I fought, so much as I hated the idea of them. And that idea was so, so distorted.”

Nicky huffed a chuckle because otherwise he would cry. Memories of that time always made him ashamed and angry at his own naivety. 

“When I met Yusuf on the battlefield, I cut him down without a thought. I had started seeing him a few nights before that, but I thought I had simply seen him on the battlefield before and incorporated him into my dream. I had died without knowing it at nearly the same time as Yusuf. You’d have to ask him what he thought of me; he’s told me, but I can’t do it justice. You know how poetic he can get.”

Nicky allowed himself a fond smile and suddenly it was easier to keep going.

“When I stopped dreaming of his resurrection, oh how I hated him! I was convinced he was a heathen witch, or a demon. The next battle, he searched for me. We fought. And he killed me. I _knew_ I had died, but then I came back with him hovering over me and… I was so confused. This enemy was just sitting there, waiting for me to return. No one else was there, other than the corpses, of course. And… I didn’t hate him anymore.”

The marine snorted and Nicky chuckled a bit. 

“Oh, I didn’t love him,” he clarified. “But to hate something you have to provide your hate with fuel. My fuel was that fear of being overrun. But here was a spectre, and example of the eastern scourge, and he was just sitting there. A man, clothes ripped and absolutely _covered_ in blood. He still looked like a demon, but he wasn’t. Whatever I hated: it didn’t exist. My fuel ran out. I didn’t know what he, what _we_ were, but I knew whatever it was, we were both part of it.”

His attentive audience hummed and took another sip. 

“The cure for hate: not love, but connection,” she mused. 

“Personally, I always thought apathy was far worse than hate. Hating still needs one to care about the target of the hatred. _Madre di Dio_ , one can do far more horrible things when one simply doesn’t care.” Nicky blinked away muddy trenches and high wire fences and syringes. “Anyway, the hatred left suddenly but it took a while for the love to come. We still killed each other again and again. We still had obligations to our respective militias. And then, one day, we didn’t kill each other. But that’s another story.”

Nile whined a small disappointed mew, but Nicky just chuckled. 

“We were talking about guns,” he reminded her.

“Oh yeah,” Nile replied. There was rustling and shifting of material from beside him, but Nicky didn’t open his makeshift canopy to see what she was doing. “I don’t hate them. I don’t like them. But knives, wow. I’m not sure, but I might be in love.”

Nicky outright laughed at that.

“Oh, have you found a nice pair of twins to take to bed?” he teased. 

“My ladies have more class than that,” she teased back and oh, Nicky was so glad he had taken her up on her offer of companionship this morning. “I’m still wooing them.”

“Of course, my mistake,” he soothed mockingly. “It’s good to see you take to the weapons we are so familiar with. All of us have our favourites. Guns are all well and good, but they can be so _boring_ , can’t they?”

Nile giggled. “I thought your rifles were your babies?”

She had definitely figured him out, damn it. Stupid, letting his mouth run away without his brain. It could have easily been another few months of messing with her. 

“Well, they are,” he tried to cover. “But it’s more that I’ve always had an aptitude for long-range combat. Bows, crossbows. I even learned the bola once westerners had discovered the Americas. That’s not to say I don’t like my sword, but that shot, that intimacy, that distance which doesn’t feel like distance …” 

“… it feels like a part of you,” Nile finished for him. 

She had bonded with her dual daggers, oh yes, if she could say something like that. He saw her trying out moves and doing manoeuvres late into the night sometimes, after everyone else had crept into bed. Joe had bet that her favourite was going to be the labrys like Andy, but Nicky saw the way she held those blades. Using them as extensions of her punches, twisting them in her palms, trying things out. To him, there was no mistaking the infatuation. 

“I know why we do the formations and the live exercises, and I’m pretty good at all that if I say so myself,” Nile pulled him back into the lazy atmosphere of their shady spot. “But I think Andy’s getting a little frustrated with our sparring. You know why?” 

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” he advised. “You’ve learned how to work as a team thanks to your marine training, but you’ve never focussed on just your own style, have you?” 

“Well, there’s the boxing…” Nile began, but she trailed off when she couldn’t think of anything else to add. Nicky sighed. Ah, reassuring the young and inexperienced; a role he had taken many times.

“A lot of combat is instinct and muscle memory, and you did great adapting to our style, but in the end, being a follower is not the same as being a moving part in a machine. Being support does not allow for discovery of a personal fighting style. That’s why you’re doing individual sparring with Andy and probably why she’s giving you a hard time. Eventually, once we’ve all gotten used to what you do with hand-to-hand and with weapons, it can be incorporated into our drills just like my broadsword and Joe’s scimitar. It’s about practice and familiarity.”

“It’s about _time_ ,” she muttered with no small amount of aggression. 

“Precisely,” he replied sympathetically. 

“Well, I’m gonna stick with my girls for now. Get beat up by Andy, see what she thinks.”

Nicky snorted gently as the hammock began to sway in the rising wind. 

“And us, don’t forget you’re going to get beat up by Joe and me tomorrow.” 

“Like I could _forget_ , white knight extraordinaire,” Nile grumbled. 

Nicky’s raucous laughter got lost in the rustling of leaves, but Nile presumably got the message anyway, because three seconds later his canopy was removed, and he was doused in sweet-smelling liquid. He spluttered all the way to the house, chasing after a cackling child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, I read the last issue of Force Multiplied and that bullshit ain't happening, okay, I'm officially adding Alternate Universe to the tags. All I'm taking from the comics is some backstory and characterisation.


	8. Changed Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here we go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: descriptions of drowning and depression
> 
> So, I'm posting this from my buffer because I should really be working, whoops-  
> It's shorter than the last few ones, but that's because I had to split my chapter.  
> I hope I don't sound flippant about PTSD, I take my representation seriously. If you have suggestions how to better my writing, please tell.

**Nile**

Waking from dreams was always a chore for Nile. Immortal-dreams were vivid and woke her up in the middle of them – Nile had theories about interrupted REM sleep allowing for memories to form, but sleep research was in no way a priority nowadays. The thing that made them a chore, was that she usually needed a full half-hour to remember that she wasn’t drowning. 

Clawing at the bedsheets so she wouldn't forget that she was lying on them. Squinting at the sun or into a lamp until she thought she'd go blind so she _would_ forget what liquid darkness felt like. Sometimes Nile just ran her fingers over the fingernails of the other hand, to remember that she had them and they weren't constantly being worn down by scraping at the slowly, ever so slowly rusting metal. 

This time, the chore was figuring out why she _wasn’t_ having to remind herself she could breathe. She hadn’t been drowning, she wasn’t drowning. Quynh was there – for the first time Nile could properly see what she looked like. Asian, beautiful. So tired. She was by the ocean. There were seagulls. The flashes were as disjointed and confusing as ever. It was definitely still an Immortal-dream, but the suffocating water was gone. 

_The water was gone._

Nile was stock-still, frozen in her revelation. Quynh was out. Quynh was _out_!

Wait. Shit. Quynh was out. And she didn’t really feel any less crazy than she had before. 

Nile was about to drag the rest of the team out of bed to share the news when she remembered that one other still had dreams about Quynh. 

Nile didn’t even think about the fact that it was barely three days since the last time she had talked with him. She picked up her phone from the nightstand. 

“… _Cher_? What’re you calling for?” Booker sounded disoriented. “ _Merde_ , those dreams are annoying.” 

Nile’s heartrate picked up and she swallowed. 

“You got it, too? The dream - Quynh, I mean. She’s out, Booker!” Nile was so rattled she plain forgot their last conversation, but saying his old name brought it back. It wasn’t instinct yet, but she was getting used to her new name for him quickly. “Tell me what you saw, Baz.” 

There was rustling and muffled swearing accompanying a series of cracking noises that sounded painful. Booker sighed and then his voice was audible again. 

“An empty pier. Somewhere hot. Looked Mediterranean,” he groaned. “ _Merde_. That’s vague.” 

“Any words, language, clothes, food?” Nile hoped he was trying to wake himself up because she was going to grill him like she was a sergeant.

“I don’t know, there weren’t any street signs. Clothing was … generic.”

“Any other people?”

“Oh, yeah! A man, maybe middle-aged? Oh, wait no, he’s a fisherman, shit.”

Nile frowned.

“Why’s that bad? If we can figure out which ship he works on, we can find her!”

“Nile,” Booker said fondly and no, she reminded herself it was inappropriate to get warm fuzzies right now. “It is difficult to guess a sailor’s age properly, the sea ages people differently. He could be anything from late twenties to early sixties. I’m shit at dating people even when they look their age.” 

Holding in an untimely comment on Booker’s sex life that her brain provided, Nile focussed back on the problem. 

“His clothes, Baz, tell me what he was wearing.”

A sigh. 

“I only saw his shirt: denim, old. Oh, and his hands were worn. He was holding a fish. And smiling, he was smiling.” 

There was a pause as they both took this in. 

“Well, I saw seagulls. And mountains. And …” Nile was reluctant to continue. “She still felt crazy, Booker. Irrational. Like she’s still underwater, trying to get out. So many centuries drowning again and again… She’s gotta have some major PTSD, Jesus.” 

Booker was quiet. 

“She must be so scared. Oh shit, she probably can’t talk to anyone, either! Language shifts over time. Somehow, this just got worse.” 

“Calm, Nile,” Booker advised. “There is nothing we can do right now. It sounds bad, but the best chance we have of finding her is looking for any news articles around the Mediterranean about an Asian woman who was found near or in the ocean. Perhaps by a fisherman. It’s a long shot and not enough, but it’s something to do until the next dream.” 

Nile chewed on a thumbnail and nodded jerkily. 

“Yeah, I know. I’ll start with the others, see if they can think of any questions to narrow it down. Do you want to talk-?”

“ _Non_.”

Nile didn’t even raise her eyebrows. She was expecting it – depression craved isolation. Nile had learned far too much about its effects watching her mom. 

Too bad for Booker’s depression; he couldn’t hide from her. Nile wouldn’t let him. 

“Okay, but you gotta be ready to answer their questions via me. We want to find her quickly. She’s gotta be looking for us, too. Dreaming. _She_ can see _us_ , too.” 

“Yeah,” Booker muttered. “Well, she’s not seeing much of interest with me.”

Nile wanted very much to interject right there, but he hung up, all dramatic. Rude. Okay, no, it’s fine. Let him have his sulk as reward for being more helpful in narrowing down Quynh’s location than she was. 

She’d call again tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun, dun, dunnnnnnnn. 
> 
> Pray for me. Plot just snuck up and hit me on the back of my head.  
> I have the next bit already written out, but this was a sort of interlude that came out of nowhere and demanded to be written.
> 
> Next chapter: a slight timeskip + Andy POV


	9. The Investigation - Part 1 - Persuasion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nile freaks out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, for the observant, I've put a number in the 'total number of chapters' area. That is in no way the actual number, it's just how many chapters I'm ready to upload from my buffer at the time. Right now I'm using my buffer up terrifyingly fast, but by next week I will have opened up more time to write this. I'm so looking forward to it!  
> Back to the regularly scheduled Thursday updates, hopefully. Fingers crossed!

**Andy**

“Ow, fuck!” 

There was a lull in the yard as Andy and Nile stepped back at the same time. They were both sweaty and annoyed. Andy was dominating, as usual, but today the kid seemed less focussed than ever. Nile might have been cautious in the beginning, but she was growing into her immortality at a steady rate. When they practiced live rounds on her in the assault course setup, she didn’t even object anymore. 

Nile sighed. The marine was cautiously rotating her cuff, although Andy knew the pain was fading fast. Still so mortal. 

“You didn’t anticipate me grabbing your arm, Nile. Again. It leaves you wide open, we’ve discussed and gone over this at least ten times. It’s like you listen and then completely ignore it!” 

Andy huffed and pushed her hair back. She never dealt well with frustration.

“You ever done anything more complicated than boxing and boot camp, kid?” 

Dedication was as important as discipline, and Nile definitely had an equal amount of each, even if the former was lacking today. That was acceptable: better than a significant skew towards either of the two. From her moves, it was rather evident Nile had done serious training, but didn’t have much variation. 

Andy didn’t really have to ask about her martial arts instruction. The question was designed to provoke her student. 

“Fuck. You. My hand-to-hand is fine,” Nile argued. Her fists were clenched tightly again - no good for prolonged combat. “My instructor never had any complaints. He said I have what it takes.”

Andy just about managed not to roll her eyes. She hoped the sentiment was conveyed anyway through a rather long and deep sigh. Kids these days. 

“Nile, we’ve been at this for a while and I really, really hope that you’ve caught on by now that ‘I’ve been alive for a long time’ equals ‘ _I have millennia of experience_ ’. I know you’ve been taught there are rules. Your boxing has helped you; I can tell. But it’s holding you back, now.” Andy tapped her own temple obnoxiously for emphasis. “Adapt. Incorporate. Be unpredictable. You’re a fighter; why are you squandering a chance to learn how to fight better?”

Success. Andy saw the challenge register and Nile’s fists loosen a little. Andy hated doing that to a kid, one of her soldiers. Manipulation should be saved for others, for those not part of the tribe. Her penance would be to teach Nile absolutely everything she could cram into her head. It would keep her safe and that’s what mattered in the end. 

“Alright,” Nile said evenly. “I hear you. That wasn’t subtle, by the way, but it worked.”

This fucking kid. Just accepted being pushed into something she wasn’t comfortable with. Andy was going to have to be so fucking careful. She did not want another Lykon. Especially considering her new expiration date.

“Good. I’m glad you understand. Now, what the fuck is with you today? You’re so scatter-brained, it’s going to be a literal scattering of brains if we do live exercises later.”

The marine sighed and chewed her lip, deep in thought. Crap. Andy could see she was going to regret asking-

“It’s Booker.”

Yep, there’s that regret. Andy got ready to exit the conversation stage left by shuffling over to the open doorway, but Nile’s next words stopped her short.

“He arrived in Paris four days ago. Got more resources there, he says, to find Quynh. But he agreed to call yesterday, for us to bring each other up to speed, and then he missed the arranged time. _And_ he didn’t pick up when I tried to call him first.”

“People break promises all the time, kid,” Andy said bitterly, a reflexive cigarette making its way to her lips. Shit, she hadn’t even noticed getting closer to her discarded trench coat next to the doorway. 

Nile was dancing on her toes in that way she had when she was anxious, and her headshake was so erratic it looked a bit like she was having a fit. Andy rummaged for a lighter and came up empty.

“Fuck you, I know that. But ever since my first call with him, he’s been meticulous about timing. Sometimes he even calls earlier to tell me we can’t call later. Something’s up, I can smell it.”

Well shit. As much as Andy really didn’t want to face Booker, she wanted even less for him to be snatched up by the remnants of Merrick’s strike team. Strength in numbers, vulnerable alone. Actually, thank fuck Nile was such a sneak and contacted Booker early enough to form patterns. They could have lost Booker for a hundred years and never notice that he wasn’t drunk on a desert island somewhere. 

Her heart clenched so painfully, Andy reflexively lifted a hand to her chest as if to reach for the handle of a metaphorical knife. No, she wasn't going to abandon another soldier to an eternity alone.

Still, Andy had thought he would be a little better at being discreet now that they had had a taste of what life in captivity would be like. Vigilance was key. 

“…You sure he didn’t just pass out or lose track of time or something?”

The baby was glaring. It was adorable but also made Andy feel a tiny bit bad.

“We talked a few days ago, just before he got on the plane, and you know what he told me? He told me not to tell you, but he’s been cutting back on booze for two weeks and it’s going well. I’m telling you so you get your head out of your ass and start to take this seriously. Booker is _working_ on himself. For _you_. For _himself_. He wouldn’t compromise that.” 

Andy would beg to differ - people could always sink lower – but she knew what Nile would do if her mentor said no. She would go to Paris anyway, alone, potentially compromising Booker’s safehouse. That would piss him off, if he was just deep in his cups, but Andy also knew that if her student walked into an ambush without backup, Andy would never forgive herself. Well, at least until she died her final time. Which was getting closer every day. No, stop. 

“Fuck. Fine!” Andy turned to the window she knew the hovering nannies were checking on them from and didn’t bother to hide her annoyance. “Get down here with your gear, you fucking voyeurs! We’re going to Paris.”

When she turned back to Nile, the unlit cigarette was seized straight from her lips. Nile just beamed serenely at Andy’s extra-frustrated face.

“Yes, boss.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This arc is going to have more POV switching. 
> 
> Confrontation with Quynh is coming up, but I have SO MUCH ELSE to talk about, too.  
> I'm sorry I'm such a tease. The Star Trek element is getting drafted right now. I'm gonna love introducing them all to the Vulcans, it's gonna be a riot.


	10. The Investigation - Part 2 - The Crime Scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once in Paris, they do not find Booker passed out on his couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not happy with this chapter but I want to keep to a schedule and Joe deserves a POV anyway.  
> I'm making a buffer again! I basically used it all up while trying to get through RL problems.
> 
> Warnings: unreliable narrator, as always; descriptions of blood, but if you've read this far it's not worse than previous chapters
> 
> The end notes this time are a whopper but have some info for long-term readers.

**Joe**

There was a stale croissant on a plate in the kitchen. It wasn’t rock-hard yet, but it was damn close. Whatever had happened, it had happened in the last couple days. 

The rest of the flat was in chaos. It was open plan, a bachelor pad. That made it very easy to toss things into areas where those things did not belong. Such as a shredded pillow in the sink. A few holes in the ceiling that would definitely contain bullets if they looked deeper. Old books all over the floor. A knife embedded into the shelf next to the door. It wasn’t carelessness; it looked like a hastily departed battleground. 

“We just missed him,” Nicky muttered. Joe’s beloved was pawing aimlessly through the debris but stopped abruptly. “Oh no.”

Everyone turned to see what he was looking at: a spray of red that ended in a small squashed pile of sticky books. They would be unsalvageable; such was the amount of blood. Someone had definitely bled out. Andy examined a nick in the floorboards and a few slashes in the wooden supports next to the plasterboard of the walls. 

“A long blade. Good quality.” She swallowed thickly. “Quynh always favoured folded steel.” 

Joe’s brain didn’t take in this apparent non sequitur for a tense three seconds until suddenly it did. 

“You mean, you think _Quynh_ was here, killed and kidnapped Booker, and then just left?” he asked incredulously. “That’s quite a leap. Why the hell would she do that? Wouldn’t she try to get to you as fast as possible?”

“This _did_ get her to Andy.” Surprisingly, it was Nile who answered his request for clarification. Her gun was held limply in one hand. “I dream of her every night, you know. She might be out of the water, but she still feels crazy. I mean, she’s literally not rational. It’s not her fault, but perpetual drowning doesn’t leave much room for thoughts of the future. So, all she thought about was the past. And what was the most significant thing that happened to her? You would know better than me.” 

Nile demurred her own knowledge, but Joe could tell she thought she had a good idea of what it was. 

“I left her,” Andy whispered. 

Joe’s beloved was shaking his head even before Nile had finished and stepped closer to Andy. 

“No! You didn’t leave her, she was taken! What could you have done?” Nicky gently held one of Andy’s shaking hands in two of his own and kissed it. “Oh, if only we had planned a rescue for earlier that fateful day!”

Joe was still confused.

“What does this have to do with Booker?”

“Don’t you see it?” Nile implored. She didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic to share her theory, just weary. “Booker is on the outside, shunned. He might be feeling betrayed, even if just a little. It’s not like we can’t understand why he did it, there just needs to be a consequence, apparently.”

Joe _couldn’t_ understand. It was why his insides were writhing just from being in a place so obviously meant for only one, French occupant. Joe was barely even inside the doorway. 

“Quynh, she feels betrayed too. And she’s probably looking for an ally for revenge in Booker. But-.” here Nile’s voice cracked. “But he obviously wasn’t on board with whatever she offered, hence the blood and the mess.” 

Sounded suspicious to Joe. 

“And if this is staged?” he offered and took the glare Nile sent his way with a raised eyebrow. “What? You’ve been thinking it yourself, you’re not stupid. Spill some blood, make it seem like a struggle and then we still believe in Booker’s innocence even when he turns up again. Simple spy extraction technique.”

“Except for the part where no one has contact with him except me, via phone. All he’d have to do is keep calling me regularly and we’d have no idea!” 

Nile made a good point, but Joe was unconvinced. 

“What if Quynh needs him for something that takes a long time? That won’t allow for check-ins? We don’t know _what_ she’s planning!”

Nicky pressed an arm against his side that made Joe calm down in a distinctly Pavlovian manner. Joe readjusted the death-grip he had on his gun and sagged a little. Fine, his temper could wait. 

“All of you, shut up. None of this speculation is getting us anywhere. Facts only,” Andy demanded in a monotone. Shit, Joe had forgotten who they were talking about; he had never seen Andy with anybody like she had been with Quynh, and here they were, shitting on her memory. 

Nicky was the first to recover.

“Well, someone with a long blade was here. Booker was also here; there were the ownership documents at the drop-point, remember?” 

Joe nodded; he had seen the renting agreements and the cash paying for them with his own eyes. There was no doubt that Booker was the landlord of this shitty building, and that he kept the bottom apartment for himself. 

“Someone was in here who wasn’t Booker-.”

“Actually,” Joe interjected Nile’s contribution. “Booker could have done this by himself. We taught him to use a blade and he has some knives of his own; wouldn’t surprise me if there was a sword, too.”

Joe gestured at the dagger thrust deeply into the shelf next to his shoulder as evidence. 

“And what about the body?” Nile demanded. 

“Nile, _tesoro_. You’re still thinking like a mortal. Booker could have stabbed himself and bled out, then gotten up a few minutes later and left,” Nicky said gently. He side-eyed Joe and conceded: “There are ways to move a body without drag marks or blood trail, too, of course.” 

Nile’s face did some gymnastics and settled on a blank expression.

“Fine. Something happened here that wasn’t cleaned up, _for whatever reason_.”

“Yeah. There’s too much we don’t know,” Andy concluded. “This could be a scare tactic by someone completely unrelated to Quynh, too. Like Merrick’s goons.” 

That sobered everybody. Although the young CEO was very suddenly dead earlier that year, Merrick had had a keen corporate sense to complement his arrogance. He had prepared for a temporary successor of his position until the company board could elect someone new. There was a seamless transition within days of his death which the whole team had followed via websites and social media. Copley had kept them apprised of the gist of things happening behind the scenes, but without Booker to hack and double-check, it was impossible to know for certain if the company had discarded the immortality project or simply made it even quieter than it had been before. 

Merrick Pharmaceuticals was doing big things in genetic research circles nowadays. Joe hadn’t even tried to understand all that bullshit, but from what Nile had gathered, some presentations they had performed at conferences were getting dangerously close to designer-baby-talks. Lots of investors would be interested in getting a foot in the door first, there. 

None of them knew how far the knowledge of immortality had gone, but it had always served them well to assume the worst. And Booker, fucking traitor that he was, had handed the company their faces and their samples on silver platters. There hadn’t been time to destroy or erase anything linked to them on their escape from Merrick’s fortress. It wasn’t even a nebulous idea that they had come for the one excised from the group, the most vulnerable. It sounded extremely plausible. 

“So, what’ll we do now? It’s not like there’s a blood trail to the next clue.” 

“Let’s clean up the blood,” Andy ordered, just as quietly as Nile had commented. “Can’t leave that to stink up the place, it’ll attract attention. Then, we leave for Safehouse Delta. Fuck, let’s hope that one doesn’t get compromised too; we’re running out of them around here.” 

Andy twitched and quickly made the signal for ‘ears listening’. Shit, yeah, they hadn’t been watching their words, had they? Better not talk about the most secure safehouse they had left in the outskirts of one of their most frequented cities. 

Nicky snorted as naturally as if it were real while scanning the places most convenient for placing bugs. 

“ _Sì_ , we only have _how_ many left in France?” It was a misdirect – there was only the one. Well, the crappy motel they owned right by the German border might count, if you squinted. 

“Shut up,” Andy said and drew the front window curtains fully closed. 

Joe got the cleaning gloves out that he knew were under the sink – there were always gloves under the sink, whichever safehouse they were at. Those books would have to be burned; it’s not like they could just toss them in a dumpster. That would be begging for a police investigation once a homeless person discovered them a couple days from now. 

Despite his determination to stay suspicious of the Frenchman, Joe couldn’t help feeling dismay at the bloodbath. Booker would be devastated that most of his Jules Verne collection was lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Booker having a Jules Verne collection is just hilarious to me, okay? Give me this.  
> I hate dialogue, it's the bane of my writing. Why did I decide to do dialogue? Oh right, when I decided I wanted to make a character study into an epic sci-fi/fantasy mash.  
> Also, I'm sorry Joe-fans, my Joe is a suspicious SOB who doesn't like traitors. He was bros with Booker and look what that got him. Remember that unreliable narrator warning, peeps.
> 
> Anyway, I got a comment about the chapter-indicator telling people there's only this chapter to go. Whoops, obviously didn't make it obvious enough - I'm updating the eventual chapter number as I write those chapters. I don't want to give people the expectation that this is gonna be an epic (with that tantalising 9/? chapter-indicator) and then just suddenly stop updating - it's my pet peev that authors do this. If I ever abandon this fic, you will have warning and I will still post my buffer even if I hate it. Okay? Okay.
> 
> Next time: Copley POV. I'm nervous. I don't really like him as a character but I find him fascinating to write.


	11. Announcement - not part of story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not a real chapter. A pseudo-chapter.

Hello regular readers!

I feel like a disappointment because I accidentally did what I said before that I hated in other authors - stopped writing with no warning. 

Sorry about that

This story was a feelings-sink for me at the time of writing, but I'm currently not in a good place and I didn't want it to affect my writing in a negative way. This is my escape.

Hence the unplanned hiatus. For a month.

Yeah.

Also, side-note, job hunting is exhausting. 

I don't want this story to suffer in quality, which is why I will finish writing it first, almost to the end probably, so that I can properly edit it and then post. I have no planned chapter count at this point, but I estimate it will have about double the word count it currently has. 

I do know that it will stay heart-wrenching throughout, which will be exhausting to write in itself. 

Another side-note, there are outtakes and an AU and also a proto-sequel simultaneously in the works. This is the biggest project I've done, so far. Which is why I want to do its first story justice. 

Hope you can bear with me. 

~ SYN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will replace this with a real chapter once it's ready.


End file.
